Food retail industry has ‘mother of all hangovers’
Shore Capital analyst Clive Black compared consumer recklessness before the recession to a binge and its impact to a hangover during a speech earlier this month.
Hear his thoughts on the industry’s recovery in this exclusive podcast for FoodManufacture.co.uk, which was recorded at Eversheds’ food and drink conference in London.
‘Eye of the storm’
“Having come through the eye of the storm, I think the outlook will become slowly but progressively better,” Black told the conference.
“We are looking at food prices in the long run going up. The rebalancing of the superstores mean they should become more profitable.”
He said the recession changed consumer behaviour with buyers thinking more about themselves, than wider issues such as the environment and animal welfare.
‘Pennies got tight’
“Me became more important than you when the pennies got tight. Health and wellbeing has become an ingrained feature of the food industry,” he said.
During his speech, Black also said that Tesco was leading the way by simplifying its supply chains, after having been cast as the “villain” for complex dealings.
He predicted that the big four supermarkets would make their supply chains simpler in the future and said the trend was being seen across the board.
View from analyst
“Having come through the eye of the storm, I think the outlook will become slowly but progressively better.”
- Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital
